The Elie Wiesel tattoo question is resolved: No tattoo

Close-up of Wiesel’s arms from the photograph taken in 2006 by Eyal Toueg, published after Elie Wiesel’s death.

By Carolyn Yeager

ELIE WIESEL was physically put to rest five years ago on July 3, 2016. Now, the website “Elie Wiesel Cons The World” will be put to rest at the end of this year.

That website was instigated by me, and assisted in its early days by the ever-helpful and much-missed Bradley Smith and his CODOH webmaster. I wanted to feature the phrase “Where's the tattoo?” taken from the extremely  popular 1980s Wendy's advertising campaign, “Where's the beef?” Delving into all aspects of Elie Wiesel became a major passion for me to which I devoted a great deal of my time. In the course of six years (2010-2016), I personally produced close to 130 articles, in the process of which I came to know more about Elie Wiesel than probably any living person outside of his family (and likely including them!).

Now, as I contemplate EWCTW becoming a non-active (read only) site—complete and total as is—I considered what I wanted visitors to see first when they hit on eliewieseltattoo.com. The answer was obvious—did we solve the riddle to Elie Wiesel's “missing tattoo?” Indeed we did, and it was what I had believed from the start—Wiesel did not have the number A-7713 tattooed on his left arm, and he never had it.

I had always had to be careful about the tattoo because of the timidity of other revisionists who warned me not to claim outright that Wiesel was lying about having the tattoo. He might then pull a tattoo out of a hat or somewhere else, and I would then look foolish. I doubted that but went along out of an abundance of caution. I did, however, write this article in January 2016—and you can see in the comments how people responded. I had concluded from all my reading and research about Wiesel that he was not as careful as people thought he must be. No, he was in fact careless and gave himself away time and time again, but the Jewish and non-Jewish press never pressed these gaffes. Elie Wiesel knew that if all else failed, the Mossad would come to his aid. He was an Israeli national treasure.

It was a shock when, about a week after his death in July 2016, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz published the photograph, a detail of which is at the top of this article. There was no mention in their article of the bluish smudge on his left arm, but there it was! I really didn't know what to make of it. I published it at EWCTW but felt I couldn't come to a final conclusion on it.

I waited for more to come. But after five years—nothing. No further photographs, or announcements, or anything at all about this photograph. It seems certain to me that there won't be more, and that the Elie Wiesel Legend has no more surprises. It looks like the Elie Wiesel half-century is really over.

Please visit eliewieseltattoo.com to read my final “wrap-up”on the tattoo question and on Elie Wiesel's equally devious “Idea” for witnessing as a 'Holocaust survivor'. And leave a comment while you still can. Thanks.